


Sanctuary: Warmth

by B_Radley



Series: Rise and Fight Again [23]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Multi, Self-Medication, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 21:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9566645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley
Summary: My self-sacrificing idiot,she thinks.Takes one to know one, Tano,says a tiny voice in her head.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Bud Shall Yield No Meal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8253691) by [B_Radley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley). 



Ahsoka Tano dozes, basking in the warmth of her hunter. Her visit to the old _Consular  
_ was unscheduled, but certainly not unwelcome. A slight smile plays over her full lips as she remembers the light from their touches. Their touches both tender and desperate at the same time.

She comes a bit more awake as she feels him slide out from under her head, taking care not to disturb her. She hears rustling in the dark and then the bed shifts slightly as he returns. He carefully lifts her head and returns it to his chest. She feels him relax.

She doesn't, as where there had been bare skin, there is the thick cloth of a long-sleeved pullover. She feels him pull the covers over the side opposite her, up around his neck.

Ahsoka waits for his breathing to slow to its regular sleeping pattern. She runs her hands lightly to his hips, answering her own question.

He is wearing sleep pants. Her eyes come fully open as she digests this. In little over half a year since they had reconnected, whenever they slept together, especially after joining, they both had remained bare or mostly bare to each other. Even though their difference in body temperatures sometimes engendered a little bit of a contest of wills when close to one another.

A contest that mostly resulted in another joining session.

She can feel her forehead furrow. She senses him come awake again. He slowly repeats the dance of gently lifting her off of him. He swings up and reaches for something in his nightstand. She hears the telltale sound of a pill bottle being lifted, of a pill dropping into his hand.

Of him dry-swallowing the tablet.

As he swings back down, she lifts her body up and puts her hand on his chest. His shoulders slump. "What is it, Jame?" she asks gently. "Nothing, Runt," he says. "Go back to sleep, _cyar'ika._ "

Ahsoka sits up fully. "No, Bait. What the hell is going on? You never put on this much clothing when we are in bed. What was that pill you took?"

"Nothing. I am fine. Please go back to sleep," he says quietly. Her voice, which has risen slightly, now takes on a different tone. One that he usually hasn't heard applied to him.

_Well, most of the time._

Her 'Commander' voice.

"No. I won't. I am going to sit here and either stare at you until you tell me what the fuck is wrong, or I am going to get up and go sleep on the couch in the lounge." He can feel her Smirk. "Or I will go sleep in Dani's bed."

"Surprised she isn't in here, already."

"Maybe another night. I wanted it to be just us my first nights here." She grows serious. "Please tell me what is wrong, Bait." She looks down and draws in a deep breath. "Is it something I have done?"

His voice rises. "No!" he says vehemently. "Never, Ahsoka." The raw emotion in his voice cuts though her.

He closes his eyes. She senses the pain coloring his Force presence in her own. He exhales. "Since I came back from Darga IV, I have not been able to get warm at night. It helps to put some clothes on, but not much. I don't know what it is."

Her eyes tear. She thinks of finding him laying on the cold ground, clad in his shorts, his little remaining Force energy focused on keeping his amputated finger alive enough to be reattached. 

She shudders as she thinks of the pain that she had felt rolling off of him on that dirt. Of his weakened resolve. Even of despair. Despair not for himself, but for never seeing his family again.

Never fear. 

She looks at him. At his newly shaven face. _Well, shaven except for that ridiculous mustache that he had left. All in the name of better fitting in with his Alderaani cops._

She kisses him anyway. Even though she thinks it resembles two _themiar_ tails hanging from each side of his mouth.

"Jame, we've slept together when you were recovering and a little after. You seemed to be alright then," she says. 

He mouth quirks in his crooked smile. "I know. It started soon after you left. Just before I left for Alderaan. I woke up shivering so hard, I thought I was going to go into convulsions. Since then, I have been feeling like I have needed to pile the blankets on."

She kisses him gently on his neck. "You do remember your survival training, right? The best way to keep warm is to crawl under the covers naked with someone." Her cool hand ghosts over his groin. "Seemed to work on Takodana. And Jakku to a certain extent." She feels his slight intake of breath.

As well as the flow of blood.

"Yeah, but we were outside in a cold environment. We're in a climate-controlled ship. I know how hot you can get just being next to me. Didn't want to compound that under all the covers."

 _My self-sacrificing idiot,_ she thinks. _Takes one to know one, Tano,_ says a tiny voice in her head.

A tiny voice with a warm Corellian drawl.

"Have you told, Dr. Heg this, Jame?" she asks. She puts her hand out to touch his cheek, but jerks it back, knowing her lowered body temperature.

"No. Haven't wanted to bother him with it. Plus, I didn't want to spend more time getting poked and prodded and 'hmmed' over. Plus..." He falls silent. _Plus the fact that it all may be in my head. That they may find that I am truly batshit crazy._

She looks up at him; allows him time to gather himself. "Do you want me to put some clothes on? I know I can't be helping, leeching off of your heat."

"No. This is the first time you've been back since it has started." His eyes bore into hers. "I don't want to spoil that work of art."

Her heart flips at those words. She pushes it down. She reaches over and kisses him. "Besides," he says with a sheepish grin. "Don't have any trouble staying warm when we're going to the moon."

"Yeah, well, even though we are going to be doing a lot of that, if our other visits are any indicator, you will eventually need sleep. Especially at your advanced age, _Baa'je."_

She dodges as a pillow is swung towards her head. "You said at night. What about the days?" she asks. "I'm fine during the day. Even on Alderaan. Just at night."

"So what are the pills?"

"What pills?" he says innocently. She pokes him in the chest."Okay, Slick. Don't bullshit me. The pill that you just took."

He looks down. "They're some Twi'lek herbal supplements that Thyla gave me." They are used for something else, but they raise the core body temperature slightly in humans." He smirks. "Couple of shots of aged Whyren's before bed helps, as well."

"What is the other thing that they are used for in Twi'leks?"

He avoids her glance. "Don't know," he whispers.

She clinches her teeth. "You are a dumbass, Covenant. A pure, unmitigated dumbass. So where did you hear about them?"

"Baldrick researched them for me. Said that there were no side affects for humans."

"Awesome. You are now taking medical advice from a thief, a slicer, a pervert, and a borderline criminal. With his brain, they are probably the equivalent of Twi'leki stay-hard supplements."

"Well, from a certain point of view, both of us are criminals." he says. He feels the eyeroll in the dark.

He starts to say something else, but thinks better of it. Without a word she rolls onto him and plants her knee in his chest. She ignores his exclamation, as she reaches into the drawer. She manages to grab the bottle against his struggles.

He feels the burst of Force energy as the bottle flies into the 'fresher. A few seconds later, several small splashes are heard, followed by a flushing noise.

She eases her knee out of his chest; replaces it with her body. Her face moves to his. Their lips meld as she tenderly kisses him. "This is what you are going to do, Bait. Tomorrow morning, you are going to call Heg and tell him everything. You are going to listen to what he says and you are going to follow every instruction. To the letter. Second, you and I are going to work on an immediate solution, since certain activities seem to increase your body temperature."

She kisses him again. "Thirdly, you are never, ever going to keep something like this from me again." Her look softens in her eyes. "I know that both of us have had to learn how to trust, and how to let each other care for the other. This is minor. But it could've gotten much worse. So talk to me." She steels herself.

"This is the most important part. Don't ever be afraid to talk to me about this. I got something from my Force sense when I was looking for you. Something of J'ohlana telling you that it was okay to rest. To make the pain go away." She sees the tears form in his eyes. He looks away. 

She very deliberately grasps his jaw and turns it towards her. Her powerful eyes look into his. "But I also felt her say it was not your time. One thing that you should know. She told me to take care of you. That she and Shak," he starts at the name of his unborn son, "would wait for you and that they would....." She chokes. 

He reaches up and touches her cheek. She gathers herself. "She said that they would share your heart with me."

He is silent, as he digests this. She lays her face on his chest. After a moment, she wipes her nose and eyes on his shirt. They both laugh. He looks as if he has made a decision. He starts to lift up from the bed.

As he does, her cool hands grasp the bottom of his shirt and yanks it without ceremony over his head. The same movement is completed with his pants. The huntress grins as she feels him grow hard against her middle.

Without preamble, she sinks on him. As their breathing grows rapid, and the warmth rises, she looks down at him through her rising passion. "You really are a dumbass sometimes. But you are truly my dumbass, so I guess that I have to deal with it."

Both are soon unable to speak except in whispers against each other's skin, cool and hot.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" she asks imperiously, as they lay catching their breath.

There appear to be no issues with warmth at this particular moment.

"Nothing, I haven't been able to get a word in edgewise." He dodges about a half-second late as her pillow intersects with his head. She is soon giggling uncontrollably as he finds a familiar spot. 

Ahsoka grows serious. She kisses him again. "I wish that I had met her. She seems like an incredible woman, Jame." 

He starts to say something, but once again remains silent. _That is a story for another day, my huntress._

Later, Covenant's eyes widen as the young ex-Jedi's other 'short-term solution' walks into the room.

She pushes him to the middle of the bed and climbs in on his right side.

"Really, Covenant? You couldn't let me know what was going on? I couldn't even figure it out through the empathic connection."

"I didn't want to...."

He yelps as Daaineran Faygan bites his shoulder. In the exact spot that another caretaker had bitten him only a few moments earlier. "Don't even tell me 'I didn't want to bother you,' or you'll get worse, dumbass."

He is silent as both women pull closer to him.

For the first time while trying to rest since he had been left for dead on a cold Mando world, he feels warmth.

Inside and out.

As they fall asleep, at least two, but possibly all of them sense a presence watching them. A presence with laughing dark eyes and a slightly bent nose. A presence standing next to a smaller figure with curly dark hair and a pair of inquisitive green eyes.

Both of the presences are smiling at the warmth.


End file.
